love labs

love golf

love needlepoint

love cashmere

love socks

I always really look forward to Unravel , it’s a well organised show with wonderful exhibitors , workshops and lots of buzz held in the Maltings- a reconverted ale house dating from 1750. The Maltings is a terrific venue with a rabbit warren of rooms- looks to explore and discover with great exhibitors tucked away everywhere.

Since returning from Paris, I have been dyeing almost nonstop .

Midnight- this was the top seller and unexpectedly sold out across many bases

Reds/pinks- really popular in Paris especially in lace

Greys-Greys- Black

Went to Paris with a serious amount of new Flash colours- had to replace all

Then of course there’s deep jade which is always popular

Then I did a new colour for Unravel-this picture does the colour no justice- it’s beyond aqua bright and intense. If you like turquoise, you’ll like this new take;but. you’ll need to see it to appreciate it.

The last week in Paris exhibiting at Aiguilles-en-Fete was one of long hours trading (one day went from 9:30am -9 pm!) ,increased proficiency in French , and a tremendous amount of fun. Although this is not my biggest stand of any of the shows I attend, it is by far the most crammed per square inch .

This needless to say takes a lot of prep. However, I am good at battle planning. Some of the considerations I go through:

A) dyeing the yarn which also involves trying to anticipate what colours will be big this year. I dyed more pink and navy than I would normally and I think nailed it.

B) printing patterns and organising the French ones

C) deciding what stays and what goes – do I really need to bring all 36 colours of plain silk?-how many varieties of sock yarn? etc, etc

E) planning each gridwall down to the inch and deciding where to stash any excess. which involves about a pad of sketched plans.

F) travel logistics- eurotunnel, insurance,etc. I’ve stayed at the same flat for the last couple of years so that is at least a known factor.Making sure I’ve got the ream of paper work sent by the organisers none of which instructions will be followed anyway.

G) packing the car-this takes forever… I think the land cruiser is now notorious as a tardis. My procedure is to stack the grids first ( actually first I stuff as many hooks under the front seats as possible), stack the boxes , then stuff in 13 large packed bags, then the mannequins, ladder and baskets. I then stuff in 2 kilo bags of yarn in every nook and cranny possible. ( I kid you not, get in at least another 20-30 kilos this way.) The back door is shut with prayers that no official will ask me to open it.

The days go by very quickly even though long and I am usually too tired to do anything particularly interesting at night, so I attempt to take a day off to visit Paris.This year I did it on the Monday after and unfortunately the 3 smaller museums I wanted to visit were closed so I had to resort to aimlessly wondering the 6th drinking copious amounts of espresso and to shopping.

No, I did not buy the Christian Louboutin sneakers.

My friends in France who help me are absolutely amazing- I could not do this show with out Florence, Gyorgis, Anne and I would never get get into the car again without Francis- breakdown in France is the most chaotic ever…